A Lesson on Humility(A Mini Series)

I never imagined learning so much about myself on my 26th birthday. I’ve decided to break up this post into chunks so I don’t bore you to tears and you come back.

I went to Tennessee to visit one of my best friends who recently moved there to start her doctorate. This visit happened to fall on my birthday weekend (PS I slyly inspired two people to commemorate my birthday thru their blog by prompting them to write about Elvis who’s my birthday twin. Postinspiration FTW) So yeah. I’m 26! Woot! I LOVE birthdays.

It usually snows on my birthday so while in Tennessee, we had a few flurries on Saturday, no big deal, we went about our day. I was scheduled to come back home on Monday afternoon. I was awaken on Monday morning to Ags whacking me to get up and “OMG OMG LOOK OUT THE WINDOW! SH*T! CALL THE AIRLINE!”

I shuffle out of air mattress and look to see a ton of snow on the ground and slushy road conditions. The streets near Ags apartment hadn’t been shoveled. Okay, fine. So I get on my phone which luckily had internet (which before I was cursing my dad for the added cost but now am SO GRATEFUL for it bc it helped me out soooo many times this week) and find the number to the airline and find out my flight’s been cancelled but they could rebook me for a 5p flight. Cool, crisis averted.

After showering and what not, we head out to grab some BBQ because I couldn’t leave without trying TENNESSEE BBQ?! We drive by a mom & pop establishment. They’re closed. Hmm, okay, no worries! We go off to find this local chain that serves bbq. Yeah. They’re closed. Mind you, there’s maybe two inches of snow on the ground but apparently this whole town SHUTS DOWN. We go off to find one closer to Nashville. Find one. It’s near a gas station. It’s CLOSED. AND we realize that a lot of private business like this gas station haven’t cleared the snow! We finally find one closer to the airport but they are right about to close. We scarf down the food and make our way to the airport.

At the airport, my flight is delayed by an hour because the plane coming in was behind schedule. They had to rebook my connection from Charlotte to 10p. Okay fine, I already had called out of work for the next day early on, to accommodate any delays.

I finally board the plane, and we get to Charlotte. We sit on the plane for an hour because all the gates are currently occupied. Connections are missed. The captain finally tells us, those planes can’t pull away because of the icy conditions and we have no other option than to deboard out in the cold and….the airport is shutdown because of said conditions. Once again, *grumble* OKAY FINE. Once inside, they hand everyone a coupon for hotels and a hotline number to rebook a flight. I call and get a recording telling me they will answer my call in 15min. 15min?! I could be dead by then! (Sorry if you find that phrase offensive, it’s my melodramatic go-to one liner)

I hang out and call my sister and ask her to rebook the flight online (I didn’t bring my laptop and there is only so much I can tolerate doing on the phone.) She finds me a flight at 8:00am, AWESOME. Then when she tries to confirm the flight, it’s nowhere to be found. Jiggawhatnow?! She tries every which way to pull it back up to no avail. FML! (Turns out that flight was already cancelled)

At this point, the airport is trying to corral everyone and herd them to gate C (I was in E, which is FAR from C). I am beyond miserable as I make my way up the maze. In gate C, they are passing out cots and yoga mat looking things to the people who are going to sleep in the airport. I finally call that phone number again and am connected to a human being right away (it’s around 11ish pm?) She puts me on a plane leaving at 4PM. :::groan::: So sleeping on the airport wasn’t really a feasible option, right?